As the debate takes place in Sacramento about whether to move the California Presidential primary to the first Tuesday in February, there seems to be widespread consensus amongst the Sacramento-Insider crowd that the legislative primaries should stay in June. As is being reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the cost for holding an additional statewide election is somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 million smackers.
So why not move the legislative primaries to February as well? I can think of a practical consideration — which is that it would cause folks to have to decide pretty early if they want to run for office. But, heck, everyone seems to decide awfully early right now! But moving off of that logistical challenge for potential candidates, I think that it is obvious that many politicians in Sacramento see a statewide Presidential primary in February of ’08 as one last opportunity to place a measure on the ballot to somehow loosen term limits. What is $90 million bucks compared to the opportunity to keep such amazing legislators in office for a few more years! (Not!)
I look at the legislation that passed before we had term limits, and I look at the legislation that passes now. And while I don’t necessarily see things being better for taxpayers, they certainly aren’t any worse. But we have done away with the idea of career politicians, and we now have an opportunity for many more Californians to serve in the legislature. I admit it — I am still a fan of term limits as a ‘necessary evil’ against a political system that so overtly favors incumbents that there really is no other way to have turnover in the legislature.
From a practical point of view, I think it will be nearly impossible to pass a loosening of term limits in February of ’08 — for a number of key reasons. The first of which is that the plans of which I have heard call for the legislature to put the measure on the ballot themselves. Don’t you think that will look a bit self-serving to the public? Second of all – term limits are still very popular with the electorate. Californians don’t want career politicians. Third, Capitol denizens are fooling themselves if they don’t think that there will be strong, vocal and well-funded opposition to a plan to loosen this voter-imposed reform on the legislature.
I am sure that improvements could be made in the current term-limits set up — perhaps the law could be tweaked. But there is no way that the electorate is going to pass a change that allows the current politicians to benefit. So the real question is this — are California legislators altruistic enough in their concerns about term limits to put forth a change to the voters that does not go into effect until the current crop of officeholders have termed out? I wouldn’t bet a nickel on it!
